Saturday, November 1, 2008

The "Media Bias" in the election

Now it is official: there is a study out that demonstrates the media reported on the McCain-Palin ticket more negatively than the Obama-Biden ticket, and vice-verse with regard to positive coverage. This shows once and for all that the media is biased, and they have helped the Obama ticket.

How Fox and AM talk radio are not counted as main stream media is more of a mystery to me than what a pool of third tranche loans is. But that is another story.

Reporters report on news: weather, sports, and of course, politics. When Katrina wiped out New Orleans, did anyone complain that the coverage was "unfair" and "too negative"? Was Katrina jealous of "that one," you know the sun, who is always getting good press? Okay, that is a bit extreme. Lets talk sports. Let say that the Phillies swept the Rays in the World Series this year. Further, lets say that the Phillies pitched two no-hitters, hit several grand slams, made two triple plays and several doubles while committing no errors, and every one's batting average, including the pitchers, was over .400. Meanwhile, the Rays scored only 3 runs in 4 games. Several starting pitchers walked in runs with bases load. Defensively, they made 15 errors. No one batted over .100, and the manager made a record 30 pitching changes, to no avail. Get the picture? Would Rays fans be complaining about the unfair media bias? No, they know there team sucked and got out played.

McCain has run a terrible campaign. William Kristol and Peggy Noonan agree with me, or at least they agree that he has made serious errors. Meanwhile, Obama has run an impeccable campaign. Maybe there is some truth to that 'community organizer' charge that the GOP has levied against him. Right now I am laughing my ass off at the radio prank called made to Palin by a couple of DJs from Montreal pretending to be Nicholas Sarkozy. They had her going for 6 minutes. And now, VP Cheney has endorsed McCain-Palin. And why should his fellow Americans vote for McCain-Palin according to Cheney? Because Obama-Biden will "undo" all of the work he and Bush have done. When Bush's ratings are sub-20, Obama-Biden are thinking "if only we can undo all that work." Sure, Obama said something about 'feeling vindicated' by Iowa. And he has an aunt living here illegally. All of this I heard on MSNBC and CNN. This stuff just doesn't compare.

Lets talk about the complaint-of-the-week from the GOP: the media is not investigating Obama's 'associations' enough. Apparently, we have not hear enough about William Ayers, Jeremiah Wright, and RashidKhalidi. However, have we heard much about the G. Gordon Liddy, the Alaskan Independance Party, or the U.S. Council for World Freedom and McCain's relation to them? I guarantee you that Obama's associations have been reported on much more than the last three.

Note: since you probably know little of these last three, here is the relevance:

G. Gordon Liddy: convicted of conspiracy, burglary and illegal wiretapping. Famously said of US Federal Agents: "Go for a head shot; they're going to be wearing bulletproof vests. ... Kill the sons of bitches."Liddy hosted a fundraiser for McCain in 1998.

The Alaskan Independence Party: Todd Palin was a member for several years, Sarah Palin has spoken at their meetings. Their founder famously said "I'm an Alaskan, not an American. I've got no use for America or her damned institutions."

U.S. Council for World Freedom: a group associated with former Nazi collaborators and right wing death squads in Central America. McCain supported the group, and 'resigned' from it in the mid 80s.

Yes, the media is biased. Fox , the New York Post, the Washington Times and all of AM radio is biased to the right. MSNBC is biased to the left as well as CNN and others. But when you run a crappy campaign and make tons of stupid mistakes, the press is going to have negative things to say.